Volkswagen and Audi drivers challenge back against Honda performance

Although Honda was hit with a 10kg increase in Balance of Performance (BoP) ahead of the weekend, and Volkswagen and SEAT being given a 10kg break, with Norbert Michelisz sailing to pole position in a Honda and with team-mate Attila Tassi third, drivers at the Comtoyou Audi team and Team WRT Volkswagen have hit back and said the change is not enough.

Jean-Karl Vernay split to the two Hondas of Hungarians Norbert Michelisz and Attila Tassi in qualifying, but could do nothing about Michelisz’s time, with the Hungarian six-tenths of a second clear in his M1RA-run Honda Civic TCR.

“It shows the Honda car is very good to have such a gap,” said Vernay to TouringCarTimes.

“They’re trying to find excuses as to why they’re so fast, but Rob (Huff) made the pole position here in WTCC, and he’s not half a second in front of me like Norbert (Michelisz) is. When you see (Michelisz’s) results, I know he is the top front-wheel drive driver, but it looks like 10kg is not enough, I’m sorry. This track may suit us better than the Salzburgring, but the Honda is quick everywhere, they need to do something about the BoP.”

Frédéric Vervisch qualified down in 14th, the best-placed of the three Audi RS 3s, and the Belgian from a GT3 racing background says the way BoP is applied isn’t correct in his view, indicating it seemed to be based on balancing driver performance and not cars.

“I hope they improve the BoP,” he said to TouringCarTimes. “We understand that all the cars need to be close, but it’s all about the measurements – is it like in a kindergarten, where they’re like “oh, he’s quicker” and then apply it like this? The way it is, it’s really bad – they need to be clear how they do their BoP. Is it because you’re leading the championship? Or is it about the cars? I know it sounds like now we’re not good we’re complaining, but it’s not like it’s close, we’re really far off.”

Team WRT’s Rob Huff also weighed in, having experience of both the Golf and the Civic TCR.

“The BoP is still clearly very wrong,” he said. “You have Tassi and Colciago leading and winning races, and then they’re outqualified by Norbi who comes to one weekend by seven-tenths of a second. I’m not whinging – when I went to Macau in the Honda, I put it on pole by two seconds. Macau is my track if you like, so maybe against another driver like Yvan Muller, Alain Menu, I may be nine-tenths quicker there, but to do it by two?

“There’s clearly still some work to do. Unfortunately, everyone in the paddock is talking about it, and we know from previous championships, things like this can make them succeed or fail. We’ve got a great championship here, it’s growing and growing and picked up massively in the last two years, so I hope they’re able to get this right.”